“I said, No: That Bitch Ain’t A Part of Me!”

“I mean… I just went ‘crazy bitch’ on him! Completely out of control!”

For anyone, it would take some serious balls to admit to the loss of grace — to acting beneath what we all deserve to call ourselves, beneath our self-esteem. But for this tan, fit, statuesque creature of perfect hair and teeth, it must’ve been particularly difficult to own up to her defeat. Because (insert a drumroll, please): EVERYONE has choices! Some more than others — yes! But she had committed the lesser of choices repeatedly, with this one man; and the pattern of cheating herself out of the better ones — and out of her better self — has amounted to an avalanche of consequences.

For years, she had suffered in her relationship of questionable commitment — an arrangement in which something wasn’t ever enough: Something was missing. It had started with sex (as it often does); and for a while, it was good. At least: It was good enough. He wanted to keep her around, fed her slivers of encouragement; but she would eventually want more. She continued to ask for it, succeeded in an engagement. Still: Most of the time, it all left her feeling uncertain, unfulfilled. Something wasn’t enough. Something was missing.

Now, I could see from the desperate gaze she kept trying to hang onto my eyelids, my nose, or my chin, like a wet towel: I could see she wanted me to take her side.

“What a jerk!”

“What an asshole!”

“He doesn’t deserve you!”

She’d gotten used to hearing that — it had become just another pattern; and now, she was pleading for me to chime-in. But I wouldn’t: I knew better.

First of all, I didn’t know the guy; I didn’t know his half of the story. But even if I did, something told me, I still wouldn’t find the answer.

Because the affairs of others get so convoluted, so hard, loaded with pain and meanness, they eventually become gratuitous in the eyes — and the ears — of those forced to witness them. It would take me years of untangling the yarns of these lovers’ objectives, needs and secret desires; their failed expectations, lies, intimate manipulations. So, it was not my place to give him an unworthy name. And no matter her despair, I could not judge him, cheating myself out of MY grace, for the sake of making her feel better at his — and now my — expense. I knew better!

But my second truth was that, in all honestly, I knew: He had to have been a good man, merely based on the fact that no one was born a villain; and because he had to have earned her love, once upon a time. He HAD to have been good!

Now, she wanted to carry on. Armed with a generous pour of merlot in one hand, she started listing all the ways in which she had felt cheated: He did this, and that. And then, there was this one other time when he did not do that other thing… With every injustice, her breathing sharpened. She began to get flushed, upset, reliving the history of his and her lesser choices. She was getting carried away, when she confessed to snooping around his Facebook account, searching his phone; rummaging through his drawers for signs of what had been missing; violating his privacy — and her better self:

“I mean… I just went ‘crazy bitch’ on him! Completely out of control!”

Proudly, she started flaunting the evidence of his lesser goodness, so desperately wanting me to take her side.

But, still, I wouldn’t: I knew better!

And when she finally demanded some verbal charity on my part — making herself feel better at his and my expense — all I could find the compassion to say was:

“Why are you angry?”

“BECAUSE!” she whiplashed her perfect hair and spat out something bitter and dark. It landed between us, onto the glossy bar; and it sat there, sizzling: “I knew it!”

Suddenly, I was tempted to distract this heartbroken from her loss by reminding of her better choices: She had her whole youth ahead of her, and all that goodness!

But as years of beholding for others have taught me, years of collecting their grief — good fucking grief! — I knew that in that moment, she wanted to hear none of it. Because she was still hanging on: To him, to the life she had imagined; to the fantasy of his being her better choice. She was hanging onto her grief, desperately; and I knew better than to get her out of it. Instead, I beheld, quietly; staring at something dark and bitter she had just spat out in between us, onto the glossy bar.

She inhaled, hung her head, hiding her face behind the curtain of that perfect hair; and then, she fragilely exhaled:

“It’s just that…”

I looked over. The curve of her neck belonged to someone collapsing under her grief. Good fucking grief! My heart bungee-jumped into my throat: She had to have been good! Despite the slip-ups of her self-esteem, despite cheating herself out her own grace, despite acting beneath what she had deserved to call herself — she had to have been good! So, why?! Why was there something dark and bitter sizzling on the glossy bar?

“It’s just that I knew it all along,” she said. “I knew better.”

And there it was: A lifetime of lesser choices. Whoever that man was — however good he was — she herself had committed the crime of ignoring her intuition. There had to be signs all along that something wasn’t enough: Something was missing. Yet, she forged forward, making a pattern of her lesser choices, cheating herself out of the better ones (even though she knew better, “knew all along”) — until it all collapsed under an avalanche of consequences.

But good grief! She still had her whole youth ahead of her — and all that goodness! And next time around — she would know better.